oup extract, jellies, compotes, cocoa, preserves, etc. Mr.
Holman-Black came staggering after us with one of these boxes, I
remember, down the long corridor that led to the private quarters of
the nurses. One walks miles in these hospitals.

A number of American men in Paris are working untiringly for Paris,
notably those in our War Relief Clearing House--H.O. Beatty, Randolph
Mordecai, James R. Barbour, M.P. Peixotto, Ralph Preston, Whitney
Warren, Hugh R. Griffen, James Hazen Hyde, Walter Abbott, Charles R.
Scott, J.J. Hoff, Rev. Dr. S.N. Watson, George Munroe, Charles
Carroll, J. Ridgeley Carter, H. Herman Harges--but I never received
from any the same sense of consecration, of absolute selflessness as I
did from Mr. Holman-Black. He and his brother have a beautiful little
hotel, and for many years before the war were among the most brilliant
contributors to the musical life of the great capital; but there has
been no entertaining in those charming rooms since August, 1914. Mr.
Holman-Black is parrain (godfather) to three hundred and twenty
soldiers at the Front, not only providing them with winter and summer
underclothing, bedding, sleeping-suits, socks, and all the lighter
articles they have the privilege of asking for, but also writing from
fifteen to twenty letters to his filleuls daily. He, too, has not
taken a day's vacation since the outbreak of the war, nor read a book.
He wears the uniform of a Red Cross officer, and is associated with
several of Madame Balli's oeuvres.

VI

A few days later Madame Balli took me to another hospital--Hopital
Militaire Villemin--where she gives a concert once a week. Practically
all the men that gathered in the large room to hear the music, or
crowded before the windows, were well and would leave shortly for the
front, but a few were brought in on stretchers and lay just below the
platform. This hospital seemed less dreary to me than most of those I
had visited, and the yard was full of fine trees. It was also an
extremely cheerful afternoon, for not only was the sun shining, but
the four artists Madame Balli had brought gave of their best and their
efforts to amuse were greeted with shouts of laughter.

Lyse Berty--the most distinguished vaudeville artist in France and who
is certainly funnier than any woman on earth--had got herself up in
horizon blue, and was the hit of the afternoon. The men forgot war and
the horrors of war and surrendered to her art and her selec